


(untitled)

by justholdingstill (justholdstill)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean loves Castiel's face and everything else about him, Established Relationship, Inspired By, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21664504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justholdstill/pseuds/justholdingstill
Summary: a soft lil companion one-shot inspired bythis lovely Tumblr ficlet by casthewise/quillquiver. Please go give her some love!Sometimes, Dean forgets how beautiful Castiel is.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 11
Kudos: 67
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	(untitled)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quillquiver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quillquiver/gifts).

Sometimes, Dean forgets how beautiful Castiel is.

Not often, mind you, but sometimes. And he might be getting over himself a little bit more these days, but it’s not like he’s ever gonna outright cop to thinking the word “beautiful”, in polite company or otherwise, not even when he’s got Cas spread out under him in the close and quiet dark of his bedroom, flushed and awed and wild-eyed in wonder.

Still.

Cas is _beautiful._

Somewhere, Jimmy Novak’s in his heaven, and Cas walks around in a skin that looks just like Jimmy used to, full-up of an irreverent and kaleidoscopic kind of light that looks nothing like him at all. Dean has never seen Cas out of the flesh, in what Cas refers to dispassionately as his “true form”, but Dean knows in a less than abstract way that Cas measures his own height in skyscrapers. That Cas is fathoms deep and trans-dimensional, is electromagnetic radiation siphoned off from the proverbial big bangin’ birth of the universe by God himself and funnelled into an achingly distracting human form specifically to, it feels like, decimate every defense Dean’s ever had, right down to the atom.

He ought to have known earlier, maybe. Years ago, he thought the restless thrum of energy that manifested in a room whenever Cas did was probably just a typical angel thing. He could never really get used to the otherworldly blue of the guy’s eyes, either, to the way they’d always left him feeling pierced through. The way the earnest rasp of his voice sometimes rendered Dean weak-kneed and earth-shaken. Before he knew better, he’d occasionally crack a Gideon bible from the bedside table and sympathize with the shepherds quaking amongst their flocks while the blinding radiance of the heavenly host wreaked total havoc on their night shift. 

_Be not afraid_, his _ass_.

Then he got wise.

Dean is also pretty sure that God, in his infinite and douchey wisdom, knows that Dean has always been secretly, helplessly soft for a scruffy square jaw and a lick of unruly dark hair too. Whatever the case, Cas was always intended to be a cosmic sucker punch; his righteous aim might have landed a few million miles off its intended mark, sure, but lord knows Dean went down for the count with a smile on all the same.

“Dean?” Cas asks, pausing with his paper coffee cup halfway to his mouth. His brow is furrowed, his tie is a rumpled mess flung over one shoulder, and he’s got two different socks on. He’s got candy in his pockets. Mustard on his sleeve. He’s humming tunelessly along to the canned Top 40 radio drifting across the parking lot from the open door of a car where a harried mother is trying to coax a screaming toddler into her seat. Cas is a fucking mess, squinting at Dean’s face through the obnoxious sunlight baking the top of the Impala, and no way in hell is anyone buying him as a legit federal agent, but maybe that’s the authentic shine that’ll sell the ruse. 

“Yeah,” Dean says, suddenly struck dumb with love all over again, right there in the parking lot of a gas bar in Anywheresville, Arizona. 

“Dean, you’re glazing over. Are you sure the heat isn’t getting to you? Maybe you should let me drive.” 

“You drive?” Dean scoffs, caught out. He shoves half his danish into his face to buy himself a few seconds reprieve, then swallows before levelling one accusing finger at Cas. “Nice try, pal, I’m onto you. Now get your ass in the car, we’re gonna be late to meet the pastor.” 

They go south, and the case goes sideways. The pastor’s DOA, and it’s the pastor’s wife who ends up on the pyre, barbed tongue, fangs, and all, but not before she gives Cas a concussion and gets a few good chunks out of Dean.

The broken collarbone is one thing; two fingers, tender, the pulse of grace hot-cold and momentarily electrifying, balm enough before they heave themselves into Baby and limp the long road back. Cas is tired, though, tapped and worn thin, so he takes his time with the lacerations, pulls Dean up under the shitty motel lamp and pushes him to sitting against the headboard where he can get enough of the 40-watt glow to work with. He shoves a bottle into Dean’s good hand and tugs the other into his lap, unwrapping the grimy makeshift bandage while Dean soothes his nerves with 40-proof anaesthetic, stupidly grateful that he didn’t have to ask.

He’s buzzed before Cas even starts laying the stitches in, lost in the unreal up-close of it; the unsettling pink of Cas’ lips, the weary lines under his eyes, the silk of his skin under his open collar. Dean has pressed his own lips to that skin, now, mapped the warmth that pulses at his throat, chased it to its source. He’s addicted to it, more than he’s ever been to pills or booze, to the proverbial wine-women-and-song. Cas runs his thumb along the along the vein in Dean’s wrist, feather-light; Dean has to close his eyes for a minute. Swallow hard.

“You were staring,” Cas says after a few beats. Quiet, measured. It’s not what Dean expected. “Earlier today, at the gas station.”

He doesn’t mean to say it – in fact he’s building up to denial, a near-decade of habit nipping at his heels – but Dean is closing in on twenty-three hours awake, punch-drunk and road-high and just the wrong side of letting his inhibitions off the leash.

“You were just…you’re beautiful,” he blurts out, hissing between his teeth as the needle finally bites flesh. “_Fuck._” He gropes for the bottle again and promptly knocks back the biggest mouthful he can get only to choke on it. He coughs and splutters like an amateur while Cas waits patiently for him to get his shit together, doing a very good impression of an all-too-human angel pretending not to be wearing an unforgivably smug smile. “S’ a fucking distraction, is what it is.”

“And here I was under the impression that romance was dead,” Cas replies, totally deadpan.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Dean growls. He’d like to kiss Cas’ answering smirk right off his face, but then Cas is back to patching him up, and even Dean’s not that much of a masochist.

Thirty-four stitches later, the worst of the blood and the monster goo is long gone down the shower drain. Dean is pleasantly drunk, the pain dulled to a mere echo of its former self. He’s lying with his head pillowed on Cas’ bare chest, humming with contentment as Cas strokes his fingers through the hair at the nape of Dean’s neck, pressing firmly into his scalp. Years ago, he never could have asked for this. Wouldn’t have known to.

Then he got wise.

He’s warm and boneless, drifting closer and closer to the edge of sleep, when Cas says something, his voice a low, contented rumble, that Dean doesn’t quite catch at first. 

“Whazzat?” He asks, nuzzling further into Cas’ shoulder.

“I said, you should know that I am not entirely immune to such distractions myself, Dean.”

Dean wonders if Cas can tell that he’s grinning so hard his face hurts, even in the dark.


End file.
